You're Just a Baby
by escapedreality
Summary: "I mean, don't you want to love who you choose?" implied FinnickAnnie


**a/n:** edit on 8/15/11.

you're just a baby

She hates her mother sometimes, truly. Her mother with her violet hair and blue skin and (unnaturally) green eyes. She knows she has good intentions, but they just fall short sometimes.

She was twelve during the 65th Hunger Games, the year Finnick Odair became the youngest person to ever win. And like every girl she knew, she was infatuated.

Unlike every girl she knew, she told her mother and had recieved a promise in return.

"One day you'll meet him darling."

Her poor mother, always with the best intentions.

...

It's been four years since those games. She is no longer young but a mature (?) sixteen. She goes to school, chats about the important things (her new golden tattoos, golden hair and neon green eyes- she's her mother's child after all). She chats about the Hunger; her and all her friends try to decide who the best looking tribute is, who had the best interview, the district with the greatest stylist.

She lives her life like any other Capitol child-

and forgot long ago her mother's promise.

...

"Aur, can you come here?" her mother calls from the marble parlor, her bubbly voice excited. The self proclaimed golden girl waltzes in, hair swinging and heels clacking and high off the adrenline of watching the Games.

"From who?"

"Me! I didn't tell your grandmother though, I highly doubt she'd approve. She's so old fashioned, I mean navy skin was so 50 years ago... I keep telling her to get it updated," her mother says, continuing to mutter about her mother-in-law's dated fashion sense, while handing the black box to her daughter.

She zones out her mother's ramblings as she opens the box with a golden nail. The tape splits and the cardboard opens to reveal a shimmery, barely there, white dress sitting wrapped in excessive tissue paper. Her mother squeals.

"Aur, have you got a hot date tonight! Eight o'clock on the nose with guess who?"

"Who?"

"Finnick Odair! Isn't it just fabulous! I thought the white would look _stunning_ with your gold!"

She looks at the pretty dress and all at once feels naseous.

And can't quite figure out why.

...

She sits pretty on the chair of the suite, hair curled, nails done, legs crossed (and her mother was right, the does look great with her skin).

She scolds herself for being nervous, nearly all her friends have done it. Well, naturally not with the Finnick Odair- Casilla went redder than her hair when she told her.

So, she tells herself it's not a big deal.

The buzzer sounds and she nearly has a heart attack. Slowly she stands and goes to it, pushing the button and answering with a- "Hallo?"

"Am I speaking to Aurea?" The voice is deep and pleasant sounding and all at once makes her a bit self-conscious of her Capitol accent. She sends up a prayer that her voice doesn't wobble as she opens the door.

"That's me."

...

He stares at her for a moment, slight shock registered on his face. She decides he looks even better in person than he ever did on the television mentoring or during the Games.

"Why," he chuckles, "You're just a baby!"

She frowns and her brow furrows, insulted. "I am sixteen for a matter of fact!"

"And fiesty too," he says taking off his jacket and tossing it on the chair with practiced ease. "Well, I must say I was expecting someone more in the thirties range. Had a whole string of them recently," he shudders. "But clearly Capitol children start early, no? Nothing like in District Four, I can assure you."

Finnick wasn't so sure why he was being so rude to the girl- if it had been anyone else he may have been in touble. But the whole situation sat wrong with him. After all, really? Sixteen? She was two years his junior and he was young enough to still have been eligible for the Games.

(She was the same age he was when he found out the price of being a Victor. And it made him sick that while he had wanted no part, she clearly did)

"Your tattoos are lovely," he told her, smirking as he ran his hands along them, tracing them up her arm, "Do they cover your whole body?"

She blushed, a little color on a sea of gold and white. His smile widened further, seeing that he had made her uncomfortable.

This would be interesting.

...

"You seem so distracted Aurea," he says, trailing kisses along her neck. She shivers at the touch and wants to bury her face in the pillow.

She really hates her mother in this moment. Never before had she felt so completely and utterly-

childish.

"A bit," she relents, only stumbling slightly on the second word as his hands brush across her face.

"Why?" he asks, voice heavy and his hands now tapping their way across her stomach. And in an instant she understands the nausea she had experienced when she first saw the white dress.

(which now lay- somewhere- discarded)

"I don't want this," she whispers.

He stops and backs away, pushing himself up. She draws her knees up and crosses her arms, leaning her head against them. She feels very small and very pale in the ridiculous things her friends had insisted she wear underneath the beautiful dress.

"Then," he sputters "Why are you here?"

"I didn't wa- I- my mother." His expression was the same as a spoken response. She laughs harshly: "It started out as a stupid wish, back when you'd just won," she clarifies. "I said I wanted to meet you. So, now, here was my mother's perfect opportunity to raise me up in the eyes of well, everyone; to grant my twelve-year old wish; to ah, get me to speed with th eother girls my age, so to speak."

It tumbles from her mouth quickly and Finnick feels sickened- and even worse about being rude. He listens to what the girl told him in silent horror; stories about friends, classmates and all the stigma of being an upper-ring child. Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, fifteen... fourteen?

And this was one secret he could have gone without hearing.

"It's all arranged really. A bunch of people don't see the problem but," a pause: "Don't you want to love who you choose?"

She strikes a chord deep down in Victor, mentor, sex icon- and he can only think of one name.

_AnnieAnnieAnnie._

He gives the golden girl a quick kiss on the forehead and gets up to leave.

"You, uh, don't mind if I go do you?"

The girl gives him a nod, and a small smile- a true one this time, none of that coy sutff from earlier. He shuts the door carefully behind him, giving one last glance to the society broken girl laying on the bed and staring at the ceiling.

And one last look at the secret that struck home.

...

She gets home late that night and her mother is waiting up for her.

"How did it go?" she asks excitedly.

The girl looks at her mother for an incredulous moment; then she plasters on a big fake grin and raises her voice an octave.

"Just great!" she squeals. And inside she laughs and laughs and laughs.

fin.

**a/n:** So I wanted to accomplish two things here: write about Finnick and write about the Capitol people. Two birds, one stone.


End file.
